WTF? How *beep* stupid are the writers? Africa is a continent with a ton of countries. I was floored when I heard the stupidity of this.
That and Japan vs. Okinawa.
At least it's realized and posted in the goofs. I can't believe they let this through.
[deleted]
May be because almost the whole continent was divided into colonies (french, english, german, etc.). That could be kind of a reason...
shareIt was no mistake, as stupid as it sounded, a continent supposed to substitute for a country. What the filmmakers needed was to put in a black fighter, for reasons of fairness (the "token black" concept is still alive and well), as well as to make the proceedings more "racially" interesting. So they simply went for the shorthand: AFRICA! If they had selected the name of an actual African country, many of which today's populace is ignorant about, the viewing audience would have been placed in the great danger of going, "Huh"?
(Almaqueloide also makes a good point: at the time few African nations were independent of the colonizing imperialist powers, but there were some, during the 1920s? setting of the film, such as, I believe, Liberia. Yet if the announcer had proclaimed, "Siam vs. Liberia," the audience would have gone, Huh? Liberia? Where's that?? ...As I'm sure many wondered when they heard "Siam." But, thankfully, some still remember "The King and I," and so Siam wasn't completely obscure.)
.
Yes back then most people just considered Africa a big mysterious place. They weren't aware of of the different cultures and countries there.
Plus Siam had that name until 1932.
Though Okinawa at the time was a prefecture of Japan, the Okinawans still consider themselves culturally different from Japan. In fact most of Japans martial arts were started in Japan.
The person who started this thread is not as smart as he thinks he is.
Well dont you think it would have be a little redoundant to have a Kenyan fighter, an Angolian fighter, a, Ethiopian fighter, etc etc.... I think they tried to sum it up with a single fighter.. not much of a mistake if you ask me, just a way to make things more simple.
------------------
I see dumb people everywhere, and sometimes, they don't even know they're dumb!